A Touch of Song and Salem
by i-prefer-the-term-antihero
Summary: America forgot how to smile at the academy...but maybe a day out planetside is all she needs. Hopefully the people on said planet won't try to burn her down. (A fusion-style crossover with fem!America and Canada from Hetalia in the Firefly universe, cast as Simon and River during the dance and witch scenes of the episode "Safe.")
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:** _Written for my friend ladynephthyss' birthday! The characterizations of the Hetalia characters are based on her characterizations of them! _

_We both love Firefly, especially Simon and River, and as I love writing fusion-style crossovers I thought this would be perfect!_

_If you enjoy this fic, please consider reviewing! It really means the world to me!_

* * *

She's _dancing._

_God,_ Matthew thinks, _how long has it been?_

How long has it been since he last saw her dance?

When the war ended in some distant year—when German tyrants, and a bullet or two, were all they had to worry about? When they were children, and Earth was whole and they were more than ghosts flying through the sky?

She dips and twirls, like a mermaid in an ocean of sound, her blonde hair flickering, her pink dress fluttering, her cargo boots pounding like a heartbeat on the makeshift stage, her petite form tossed and turned with the waves.

He doesn't know the song. Neither does she. They don't have to.

There's a fiddle, and a flute, and the stage is full of people whirling and beaming, like they're on a ride at the state fair, like the world didn't foreclose all those years—(too soon)—ago.

It sounds like an old folk song back home.

Home, the ground, without inanimate metal clanking beneath their feet every time they tried to walk.

Home, where there was a whole lot of dirt and magma between them and the dark. Now the only thing keeping them from endless, breathless vacuum is a piece of rusty metal and a dream.

Home, with it's borders, telling you where to go, where not go, what's me, and what's you. Not here. Here there's nothing to say _'keep out!'_ but death itself. And there's no _me_, no _you_, when, where we walk. Just lawless, mindless _black_.

Home, where the sky was above their heads.

Home. Them.

She looks like she's home too. The ground may not be her own, but any ground feels like a reunion with an old friend, and she can allow herself to—just for a second—breathe again.

She looks like she's home.

She looks like home.

She is the only home he knows now. The only ground he can count on. The only safe place to rest his head.

How long has it been since they've heard music?

When the wars ended, girls in pretty dresses danced and sang, and everyone waved their flags?

When Papa took them to the opera and they fidgeted in their seats, trying to play games without getting caught?

When Arthur took them to see a famous singer or two, and they started to see what all the fuss was about?

It's been so long since they heard music. Not a single, lonesome melody. The black didn't provide much as far as records, radios, and mp3s go. All they had were their own voices out here, the echo swallowed by the stars.

Amelia would sing, sometimes, on the ship. He knew it. In the lone hours of the morning when she thought no one could hear her, she would sing Serenity to sleep. The witching hour when the nightmares and all-too-real-mares kept her awake.

The witching hour, when all the best witches were up.

A man in a brown jacket and sash comes to dance with her, and a smile holds her up, as if pulled on strings, pulling her back, back, tethering her to a time when she was an eager-to-please American girl. Well, no, not quite. There was something fake there, then. Something plastered on. This isn't made of stitches, and glue, and expectations.

This is America.

This is free.

A smile begins to break across the Canadian's face too, like all the masks they've put on—(and there are many layers to get through)—are cracking, and for a brief moment she is America again, and he is Canada, and it's them against a world that still exists.

Wild thing. Wild, _wild_ girl.

She didn't like being caged. Didn't deserve it. Being cooped up in a tin can hurtling through nothing but the dark, gravity a distant memory. She didn't like being away from her land.

None of them did. It felt like taking a drug you're allergic too—not allergic enough to stop breathing, but allergic enough to never feel right, to always feel a little sick, so long as you take it. And she wasn't the only one who had bouts of not-quite-sanity because of it.

How long has it been since they've been out?

The others went on missions—(a funny image: the Nations of the earth, stealing from the very people they once called their own, once called _themselves_, in order to survive…what a sorry lot they were). But the Captain regarded America as a bomb two ticks from going off; he didn't dare think that going out planetside would bring her back down to, well…Earth. Or what passes for it these days.

It is at this point that she catches sight of her brother, standing out in the grass—so much greener when your world has been grey for so long. Those eyes, glittering, reflecting the sky—blue here, now, not black and white…(Dorothy, do you think we're back in Kansas now?)—that smile is for him now. It makes her face shine, and he doesn't think he deserves that smile, this golden girl…

…How long had it been since he last saw her smile? Really smile. Not an ignorant, or a plastered, or a not-quite-sane smile, but _really truly_ smile?

It always seemed to go back to wars ending. A nice president maybe. No personal happiness. Just that of the world, and being told we can stop fighting our friends now. We can stop fighting…because we made them too weak to stand.

Was there anything personal to speak of?

England and her remembering, in a house in the moors, like a childhood dream, they still cared about each other.

Papa and her baking pastries. Matthew and her eating them all by themselves.

There was them. Her and Arthur. Her and Francis. Her and…him.

They all smiled before. She smiled.

He has a photograph from some year starting with nineteen where he managed to get that million-dollar-sighting, of his million-dollar-girl, and that more-than-a-million-dollar smile. A gentle, flickering thing, like catching a sunbeam with a net.

She smiled when they ran into the forest at their borders, smoking weed, stealing moonshine, running from the rest of the world, and all their bottled happiness.

Whenever their world was about something greater than pursuing happiness…that's when they seemed to find it.

But you can't chase a negative, can you? And we always must be chasing something. So let's chase a smile all the same.

They were children once. Before all the wars and all the victories. Before they needed herb and liquor to laugh. Before they were used up, stripped for their parts, they and their people shipped out, the address on the box a blot of ink.

_"We're in trouble!" a little golden head pops out from behind the coffee table. _

_Matthew continues writing. _

_"We got cut off!" she gets closer. _

_"Cut off? Cut off from what?" he asks with the air of someone who isn't really paying attention. _

_"Our platoon, Matthew!" she says like they'd been over this a hundred times. "We got outflanked by the independent squad and now we're never gonna make it back to our platoon."_

_He doesn't respond._

_"We need to resort to cannibalism."_

_Matthew still doesn't look up, unfazed by the should-be-alarming phrase, as if they resort to cannibalism every other day. _

_"That was fast," is all he says. Like the only difference from all the other times is it took longer before. "Don't we have any rations or anything?"_

_"They got lost. We're gonna have to eat the men."_

_Matthew looks up now, impatience leaking into his tone. "Aren't you supposed to be practicing for your dance recital?"_

_She pouts."I can't practice without a partner…But maybe…if a kind nation were to offer his help…" she twirls her hair, trying to make herself look like the pretty girls in the books and paintings. _

_"Papa's in the other room." He flicks his pen in that direction._

_She jumps up on the couch like a cat, swiping the notebook out of his hands with the same air—_

_"_Amelia_—!"_

_"Dance with me!"_

_The Great White North blinks up at his sister. _

_They are small. So small they could follow foxes into their dens, and fit into hollowed out trees in neverlands. _

_He glares at her. "No," he picks up the the book, brushing it off. "I need to work on this."_

_"You can work on that tomooorow." She puts her chin on his knee and blinks, giving him those puppy-dog eyes. "don't you love me?"_

_He lifts up his knee, trying to get her away. "No, you're the worst." He says, sounding very much like a nine-year-old boy. _

_She starts crying, like any self-respecting nine-year-old girl should. _

_At this he casts the notebook away, looking at her with pleading eyes "Wait—no! I didn't mean it! It was just a joke!" _

_"Mon dieu!" Francis deigns this as the moment to walk into the room. "Whatever is the matter mon petit cheri?"_

_"Matthew won't dance with me!" she points accusingly at him, her other hand rubbing her eye. _

_"Aww...But, my dear, is that a crime?"_

_Amelia pauses, thinks for a second. Matthew can almost see the gears turning in her head. "Yes! I heard the king say so!"_

_"Is that so?"_

_"Yes! He said 'by my decree, all brothers must dance with their sisters'!"_

_"Well, if the king said so, then there isn't much I can do, is there?"_

_"But Papa!" Matthew stands to protest._

_France is already setting the needle down on the old record on the desk. Amelia holds out her hand, smirking, _checkmate_, written in her eyes._

_Matthew snorts, taking her hand._

They were children once. And she smiled, and she danced, and she joked, and she cried and made up laws to get what she wanted.

They were children once. They were happy once.

But that was before. Before the world burned, and the sky turned black. That was before the Academy broke her into bits and made weapons out of the pieces.

Now dancing, music, Earth, happiness, are distant memories. A memory within a memory, until you can't remember what's the dream and what's real, if you made it all up, and what's _your_ dream, after all.

They were children once. But they grew up, and the earth got used up. And they traded their souls for smiles in dark alleyways and cramped quarters.

_She looks so small. So weak. Sitting in the cargo hold of some ship with a name like '_Dauntless_' or '_S.S. Elizabeth_'—(they all hated people who gave unbreathing things names that breathed). So small. But no trees and fox dens to hide in this time. Just a room full of boxed-up lives, in this purring, creaking bus, taking them to new universes where the grass wasn't greener. _

_Their governments provided nothing but the best for their nations' transport to new worlds. But they could never understand what it's like to be ripped from yourself. And people could get insensitive at even the best of parties. _

_So small. Nineteen-but-not-nineteen-years-old, and she looks like she hasn't eaten in months—(though he has eye-witness accounts that she ate more than one burger in the same sitting a few days ago). Her dress, hanging off her, bones that look like they could snap at any moment. She shivers. _

_They all look like this; like they've been used up. _

_They say it will be better, out there. Americans will be American on other Americas, and Canadians will be Canadian on other…well, you get the gist. But they know that while their people keep them alive, and their land keeps them alive, because it's still there…their land is still _there_. America will always be America, on _Earth_, Canada will always be Canada…and these are just distant moons, and half-baked dreams. _

_And they will always only be half-alive now. _

_She asked them once, she asked them with a child-like yearning in her eyes, and a woman's anger in her closed fists, if they would die. If, when their feet left their ground, they'd just float away. If this was what dying felt like, and they'd all been fading for a long time now. _

_Father said he didn't know. That he hoped not. _

_Papa said softly that it might be better if they did. _

_And Matthew said if they did, they would die together. _

_So now she's here, worse than dead; undead. A zombie, shaking in the cargo hold of some ill-named ship, because some politician said something stupid—like most of them do. _

_"Great party, huh?" Matthew spits as he rounds the corner. _

_Amelia looks up, then puts her head back on her knees. "Great party." She repeats in the same tone. _

_"Good cake though," he offers her the plate he brought from upstairs._

_She blinks up at him, then shakes her head and lowers it again. _

_He sets the cake down on a nearby box. _

_"Dance with me." He holds out his hand. _

_"W-What?" There's something real in her eyes when she looks up. _

_"Amelia Jones, may I have the pleasure of dancing with you?"_

_She rolls her eyes. "There's no music…Idiot." _

_"Then…I'll sing for you." He swings back and forth on the rails. _

_"Really? You? Last time you sang it sounded like a dying cat."_

_It's his turn to roll his eyes. _

_"Come on." He holds out his hand. "Do you have any other plans?"_

_She takes a deep breath and stands. He puts one hand on her waist, the other on her shoulder. Her head falls easily on his shoulder, like it took all her effort just to hold it up, and he's the last safe bit of land that hasn't been taken from her. _

_And he sings a new song:_

_"Take my love_

_"'Take my land_

_"Take me where I cannot stand. _

_"I don't care, I'm still free _

_"You can't take the sky from me._

_"Take me out _

_"To the black_

_"Tell 'em I ain't coming back _

_"Burn the land _

_"And boil the sea _

_"You can't take the sky from me"_

_And she cries._

They were children once. They grew up once. And they were used up, once. And all it takes is once to make it hard to smile, hard to dance, hard to sing, hard to find any solid ground to stand on, to hold on to.

But not today. Today is different. Today she's found ground. Today she can dance. Today she can smile. And maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.

She holds out her hand to him, _Come dance with me!_ written into her features, and he moves forward to join her—

And the black comes crashing back, pulled over his head.

And she isn't smiling anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Amelia doesn't remember everything. She doesn't remember every war between countries, every petty squabble between her family. She doesn't remember all the things Jackson said when he was angry, and Roosevelt when he was calm. She doesn't quite remember how she felt when it rained after too-long summers. She doesn't remember the feeling of wildfire, of too-long winters where they had to eat the men after all. Of every man hunt over silly things like color, if we'd like to share everything after all. Not entirely. She doesn't quite remember what it was to have fields, open and untamed.

She doesn't remember Roanoke; she doesn't remember Salem. She tries not to.

She doesn't remember how the sea boiled, the earth choked, and the sky burned when they had to move off world.

She doesn't remember what it felt like to burn.

She doesn't remember everything from the academy. She doesn't remember how school was more like that of fish; that they had to stick together or they'd be picked off one by one and devoured. She doesn't remember how they shoved needles into her brain like toothpicks, and gobbled up the pieces, her thoughts appetizers—(so what was the main course?).

She, smart girl, sane girl, doesn't remember sending letters made of jumbled notions, speaking of monuments and worlds they'd never seen, events to which they'd never been. A fraud in coded verity. She doesn't remember laying, eyes open, knowing tomorrow would not be molded together out of sunshine, and rain, and open air, it would be sewn out of blood and their own brains.

What she does remember...fragments. A flash here. An emotion there. She sees ghosts. Some benign. Some…not so. And she's not always sure what's a ghost and what's a figment, a figment of yesterday, or just today's unlucky daydreams. Though perhaps she's always seen them.

She feels things. Too much.

She doesn't remember everything. All of American history is too much for one girl's head.

But she does remember Matthew.

She remembers how much he risked to save her from the needles. She remembers the feeling of his arms around her for the first time since she left him—(all for the sake of a little knowledge…She hated how she could be so petty sometimes). The way he still, after all this time, smelled like maple, and freshly fallen snow, and cigarette smoke. How he saved her.

(Though some of her got left behind.)

She remembers how Matthew danced with her, long ago—though the occasions bleed together.

They never much liked parties.

She remembers sitting curled up with him, and a good book, by the fire, petting a dog with her toes. Thinking of home. Knowing they were close enough.

So when they take him…she forgets how to smile.

It's a game, surely. Hide and seek. She remembers that, at least. She must be "it".

That thought alone keeps her from breaking. Breaking. Breaking the world down, herself in it.

So she counts to ten, and she runs. Through the forest, each tree—(no sweet sap from them this time of year)—like scarecrows pointing no particular way, just there to scare off the birds, and maybe a sensitive child or two.

She remembers the farms, and the wind over the wheat, scarecrows like sentries.—Why do they say ravens are bad omens?—The farms, the plantations, and the songs gliding over them, songs of a home those working in the fields could never return to.

And she finds him. He wasn't hiding altogether well. In fact, he's with people out in the open, some strangers—Are they friends? Are they playing too?

"Found you~!" The smile returns. It's okay. He's safe. They can go back to dancing now.

The horror in his eyes tells her the world might just have to break after all.

"_Amelia!_ Amelia, _no_!" He breaks free from the not-so-friends holds, grabbing her too tightly, pushing her away.

"Found you—!" She repeats the words, though the tone is entirely different, choked ang confused, as the men wrap their arms around her, and their grip is not kind, and they smell like blood.

Well…if they are to return to the needles…at least they will be together.

* * *

_Matthew knocks lightly on the door to Arthur's study and walks in, despite having been given no sign of welcome. _

_Arthur is sitting at his desk, his glasses on the tip of his nose, scrutinizing a book, his brow creased a little too hard. _

_Matthew sits in the chair across from him, and sets the letters down in front of him; the topic of conversation._

_There is a full cup of tea on the table in front of Arthur. _

_Full? Yes. Steaming? No. _

_Arthur never lets tea go cold. _

_That alone would be enough to warrant the next words;_

_"Something's wrong."_

_Arthur looks up, those blue eyes stormy and perfectly clear at the same time. "Yes, I gathered that as well."_

_"You called me in here?" France knocks lightly before marching in. Despite it being Arthur's study, Matthew is the one who responds;_

_"Yes." The Canadian is tapping his foot a little too much, a little too quickly, a dull ache in his bottom lip. "It's about Amelia's letters.…Didn't they seem strange to you?"_

_"I'm glad I'm not the only one." Francis sits by the bookshelf. "They seemed quite odd indeed. Especially the part about the Darbanville's. We don't know anyone by that name."_

_"What do you think is going on?" Arthur's eyes fix on Matthew._

_Matthew looks between them, then at the letters, the words rearranging themselves on the pages. He hoped they wouldn't think he was crazy. _

_"I think there's a code."_

_The two older men exchange a glance, slight surprise on their faces, then resolve. Matthew presses on._

_"We get a few letters, then nothing, then _this_? …She's trying to tell is something." The knot in his stomach just keeps getting tighter, the ache in his lip sharper. "Something that someone doesn't want her to say."_

_There's a moment of thought_

_"…What do you suggest we do?"_

_He looked down, fidgeting with his hands before looking up, fire in his eyes._

_"We go get her."_

* * *

The moon is particularly bright this night. Not whole. Almost. Just a little bit off. Like them.

The moon. In the sky. Where it belongs. Something from a spellbook, that would turn them into wolves when drunk on starlight. Not just a dull hunk of rock in the vacuum-shield in front of them.

On better worlds this would have been a quiet night. There would be crickets and frogs, and a brother and sister would have smoked weed or tobacco, lying on the grass and named the stars. On better worlds they would have spoke of life, and politics, and absolutely nothing at all.

On better worlds Salem had ended.

But this is not a better world.

So everything is so _loud_. The shouts of a people who forgot they lived in a universe where superstition was just that renders the silence speechless. They speak of God, and broken little girls, and this not-Earth resonates with their tones. One word rings through the mob like gunshots, and everything sounds a little too much like yesterday.

The word, the yesterday it conjures, mix into poison in his veins, which turns to venom on his tongue.

Matthew marches up to the patron. A respectable man, with a sense of justice. A cruel man; a sense, yes, but he filled the blanks in the wrong order. The words a bitter demand, and not a plea. No desperation in his voice, no hesitation; his head is level, and he thinks the patron's is too. The trade would be fair and simple. There's still hope. There's no reason to resort to anything drastic just yet. The anger in his voice is barely bleeding through;

"Take me instead. Take my life for hers."

"The witch must die. God commands it." He didn't even ponder it in that thick, empty skull of his.

At those statements, the two fists shaking at his sides, want to take this man's neck and snap it between them, singing an old war song, and throw his body over a cliff, letting hungry waves devour him, or better yet out the airlock, where he will float breathless into the void for eternity…or maybe just lead him into the fire they're intending to feed his sister to.

He could do it. He wanted to. He could fly away on Serenity's wings and never have to answer for such a crime. He's killed better men in wars before. And sometimes outside them.

But, no. He must sit quietly, and watch, and wait for the end. Amelia may not be very happy if her brother killed a man in front of her. Or…

He tried not to indulge the thought that maybe she would.

And when he sees the other men holding torches, torches licking their lips, about to let them lose on his sister—

—Lighting a poor girl on fire for the simple the charge that there was a demon inside her, like we all don't all have ten or twelve—

All that anger comes pouring out. And before he fully comprehends what he's doing he runs to them.

"_Get away from her_!" that venom drips off his lips, his hands fangs, grabbing at their clothes and wrenching them and their orange beasts away.

One of them throws a punch at him. Matthew may look weak, but he has been in far worse brawls against far bigger men, in far darker streets, and these ones just so happen to intend to hurt his sister, so it's no trouble for him to knock the three of them down.

Once they're on the ground or clutching their faces he turns to the crowd, rage boiling in his gut—

—Why? _Why?_ Why is it always her? Why do they do this to her? When she was just a girl who wanted to live her life in peace?—

_"She has done _nothing_ to you!" _

Because she never did. She never did anything to hurt anyone, and they always found some reason to kill her for it. Some charge worthy of death. Some reason to light her on fire. They always do that with the good ones. She knows this better than anyone. And he says the words he always wanted to say, to all of them, sadness breaking through the venom—It was so simple, why couldn't they get that seeing ghosts is no charge worthy of burning?—

"If she dies tonight it won't be God's will that killed her! It'll be _you! Your lunacy! Your ignorance_!"

He stares out at them, and they don't respond in word or action: they don't try to refute his words, or pull him away. They just stare, their eyes blank, a court of zombies. They're at a stalemate, neither giving up the floor.

And he does what he should have done long ago, what he should have every time, every time he saw her in pain, every time they persecuted her to the point of torture, or death:

He raises his heel, and takes a step back onto the platform beside her.

"That's not gonna stop us." Says one of them.

He resists the urge to say _Never once did I think it would._

Amelia turns to him, and he expects to see fear and bloody memory in her eyes—

But she smiles. Like she had hours ago. Like nothing's wrong. Like they're still dancing. Playing war games. And she says, calling back to something he told her earlier today;

"Post holer. Digging holes for posts."

He looks at the post behind them; the one she's tied to. The one that just might be the death of her.

Post holer. For the ground.

Long ago she had ground. In America. When they caged her wild plains in with fences and wire and laws, plowing holes and raking lines across her amber fields, and it wasn't always bad, some were nice, there were farmers who just wanted to make an honest living, a pair of explorers, once, who just to see a little bit of the world…

They weren't always bad, no…but she'd rather be free.

And now they dug a hole, and put in a post to burn a not-quite-girl, with her golden locks, and her wild fantasies—wild fantasies like being happy, some day—this girl who, earlier today, was smiling for the first time since the academy. Some savage mob on an innocuous world dug a hole for a post to burn America down.

He wraps his arms around her, and she is warm, and she smells like hay, and summer, strawberries, and gunpowder.

There's no hesitation, no pain, nor even anger in the words this time. They are sheer resolve:

"Light it."

He is willing to die for her. With her. If they can die at all. If they can, it'd be fitting it'd happen out here on a twisted echo of a worse America.

They've spent too much time starving in the black.

"Time to go." Amelia says softly. And the words are not pained or afraid…there's almost longing there.

If this is it, if this is how things will end, he thinks, it's not the worst way to go. Fire's certainly better than water, because at least in fire you can breathe. It's better than the cold, because the cold has a way of ridding you of feeling before the end. At least in fire you can feel something. Because the cold is slow, and makes you rather eat your friends after all…People don't do that with fire. He always thought burning would be a fitting end for the Great White North. It's not the worst way to go; by his sister's side.

This will be how America and Canada end: on some nameless world, tied to a post, devoured by flames and ignorance. And…they're alright with that.

Then there's another sound. A sound that isn't shouts or flames or anything natural. Something that sounds mechanical. If he was delusional he'd think it was the whirring of a ship's engine.

He feels a gust of wind brush by him, and a bright light forces him to open his eyes, squinting.

"Well look at this," Out of the smoke a voice breaks through, and he says it like he came upon a good game of cricket. "Looks like the twins have got themselves into a spot of trouble."

Arthur is marching through the crowd holding a gun, Francis at his side.

"It appears we arrived just in time. What does that make us?"

"Ehh, how would le'Amerique say it?" France puts a finger to his chin as if thinking, then says in his best attempt at an American accent; "Big damn heroes."

"Ain't we just." England does the same. Then, as he arrives in front of the platform, in his normal accent: "So sorry for the interruption, gents. But it appears you have something that belongs to us. And we'd very much like it back."

"This is a holy cleansing, you cannot think to thwart God's will."

"…Would you be ever so kind as to direct your attention to the lovely lady hanging out of the spaceship with the rather large gun?"

Matthew did the same, only to see Ireland; red hair like flames in the light, another line of red piercing the air as she aimed the gun around, looking like she'd like nothing more than to pull the trigger. He'd been privy to such a look on her face only a few times, and he could confirm hesitation was not in her vocabulary.

"I'd like to introduce you to my sister. She has taken a liking to the girl currently tied to the post, and she might just be in the mood to kill one or two of you. So rather, it's her will you ought worry about thwarting." He backs up, speaking to the twins now. "I must say, the two of your's ability to get yourselves into trouble is near miraculous."

"…Yes I'm very proud."

"Cut her down." And there's a sting to his words this time.

"She's a witch." The patron says, as if, upon hearing the words, Arthur will reply _Oh? A witch? I wasn't aware. Go about your business._

"Quite frankly, I'm surprised you're bright enough to notice. Yes, she is. But she's our witch."

His eyes aim at the respectable man, and they're far more threatening than the gun pointing at his head. The words contain a venom related to Matthews, but it's the way his eyes blaze that remind Matthew that he's watched the world burn more than once;

"So cut her the hell down."


End file.
